The Auswine Forum

Excellent night. Good group. The food was top class. The service fantastic. The wait staff were incredibly attentive/obliging and the owner, Danielle has built an even more enviable fine alternative dining establishment. One of Canberra's best restaurants, I think. Will be back for sure!

Some excellent wines, and as the theme was chardonnay/gamay/pinot noir, bound for some polarisation and mandatory inconsistencies with these styles. Didn't take notes, and can't remember a few of the makers etc, but I very much liked the Collector 2012 Tiger Tiger Chardonnay - restrained but beautifully balanced, a little piece of Chablis really - delicately poised on both nose and palate, pear drop, green melon, salt air, sea shells, low oak regime, perfect aperitif style, beautifully matched to the candied walnuts (thanks Tammy - nice call). The Egly-Ouriet Grand Cru Blanc de Noir N/V (disgorged 2004, 50 months on lees) offered up superior complexity after a somewhat apple skin/cidery start. Built really well in the glass over the 15 minutes it took to fully evolve - a mature richness with lovely bready and aged strawberry/cherry overtones for me with plenty of punch in its long finish. The 2007 Toolangi Reserve Chardonnay (made by Giaconda's Rick Kinsbrunner) sat at the other end of the spectrum to Alex McKay's haunting offering - heaps more colour, richly endowed with layers of worked complexity, but still fresh and most enjoyable .... it screamed for the wonderful food we ordered. I scored it 2 points higher after my pork belly entree arrived. Unfortunately, the 1999 Hubert Lignier Morey-St. Denis Premier Cru had the slightest detectable TCA. Difficult to fault otherwise, this wine has serious long term properties, a dark, powerful pinot with plenty of flavour and impressive length. Darn the freakin' cork. We had a pair of Morgan's (Beaujolais) from the same maker (?) - one from 2009 and an younger version (2011) from older vines. The first a good wine but with a dry, astringent finish .... the second a softer, fruitier wine with better balance and far more panache. Another wine with some pedigree was the 2011 Rising Farr Pinot Noir - a somewhat confected pinot with too much sweet strawberry fruit for me, although others on the table perhaps enjoyed it more. The other wine of note was a 2007 Grand Cru Burgundy from a maker I have never heard of before and a name I can't recall. From Charmes-Chambertin, this was more a "pretty" pinot, very light in colour, rose hip and red cherry fruit with some nice complexing savoury nuances hovering around the edges. Perhaps a tad dilute, but very enjoyable over the course of the evening. I'm sure the others in the group can add more than my fading memory can produce this morning. Thanks to everyone for making it a very good night for all involved.

Thanks all. Was a good night, and Daniel & co at Pulp Kitchen did a fine job with the food. My wines of the night were the Egly-Ouriet (disgorged in 2004 and showing lots of aged champagne character but not over the hill), the 2011 Morgon and the Charmes.

The 2012 Collector Wines 'Tiger Tiger' Tumbarumba chardonnay had fantastic balance & composure, with just the right oaking to not slow down the driving fruit & bright acid. The Toolangi Reserve chardonnay was a good example of a very different Australian chardonnay style, rich & round without turning shapeless, and went really well with that duck liver pate & pickled plum dish.

Of the two Burgaud Morgon beaujolais, I liked the fruit and front palate on the 2009 but thought the tannin overwhelming and out of balance with the rest of the wine. I suspect the fruit is on the wane and the tannins never likely to come into balance. The 2011 kept getting better with air and had lovely balance and excellent length. A clean hit of raspberried gamay fruit, ripe tannins with a touch of something herbal (not sure if any whole bunches are in this)... this was excellent with my entree of potato baked in hay, fried duck egg and pickled onion. One of the best things I've eaten in a while, that dish.

The Farr Rising 2011 Pinot Noir from Geelong had its redeeming features but was first and foremost a 2011 vintage wine. Acid dominated the tannin and fruit. In a way, it reminded me more of a sangiovese than a pinot. Tasted 'brittle' somehow, like it might hollow out with age, but some interest as a thing to drink now.

With the two red burgs, the very pretty-smelling Charmes was my favourite. Good character in the other, but a combination of a touch of TCA and being still too young and tight held it back.

Good of Daniel to have sent the Calvados around after coffees as well.

Nice night. Will put my thinking cap on for an option for the next offline.

Disc.: one of the places I help out at, Quarry Hill, has Alex McKay (Collector Wines) as its winemaker.

Thanks for posting the results up. Is nice to see what vineous activities people get up to locally (and look at the tasting notes longingly) .

Sign up for the next one malliemcg. There's no gatekeeper.

Cheers, Travis.

...well that was another enjoyable evening with some very interesting wines thrown into the mix. Paul is now 2 from 2 for picking great restaurants. With impeccable service and great food I hope Daniel does really well at the Ainslie Shops.

Egly-Ouriet Grand Cru Blanc de Noir N/V: Yum! I found this difficult to describe as I don't have a lot of experience with aged champagnes of either the vintage or non-vintage variety. Perhaps there were nuances of strawberry? Either way I think I've got a bit of work to do on the Champagne front.

Collector Tiger Tiger Chardonnay 2012: Okay...now I'm starting to understand the differences between good and bad chardonnay This was a pearler. Beautifully balanced. Melons (not cans – the green ones!) and perhaps a lick of salt on the nose. The oak as a formwork for the wine was barely perceptible – it gave the fruit all the rights nudges in all the right places. VFM.

Toolangi Reserve Chardonnay 2007 : A few on the table commented that it came into it's own with food. Definitely richer and more rounded in style than the Tiger Tiger. So is Giaconda similar in style?

Burgaud Morgon 2009 & Morgon 'Les Charmes' 2011: I had to chuckle. We picked a theme ‘the Grapes of Bugundy’ and what do we end up with but 3 bottles of Beaujolais by the same producer, Marc Burgaud. (I also brought a Morgon Reserve 2010 along as a back up but it wasn’t opened). The importer was chuffed when I mentioined to him what had happened . He said we should have just done a vertical of the booj instead (of course he’d say that!)

As a single vineyard wine the 'Les Charmes' was pretty on the nose. The 2011 was all raspberries and strawberries for me. There might have been a touch of herbal action too. The 2009 was similar in fruit profile but for me it has a tannic structure that, to my mind, makes it appear like it’s built for the long haul. I thought that the tannins were good, not blocky or too drying (others had different views ). In my experience the tannins sat within an acceptable range for other higher level wines that I’ve tried from the same vintage. Commentary on Beaujolais from the vintage has it pegged as one of the best in over 50 or 60 years.

Farr Rising Pinot Noir 2011: So the 'Farr Rising' is wine made by the son and 'By Farr' by the dad? I’ve previously very much enjoyed the 2010’s by the dad – can recall chinese five spice in the nose. The Farr Rising was definitely a victim of the 2011 vintage...confected, sweet...whatever you want to call it. Strawberries, almost a Cottees jam of sweet fruits on the palate. Acid appears out of whack -there’s just far too much of it. Not my cup of tea but nonetheless a good wine to try as part of the 2011 calibration process.

Next came two Burgundies: Hubert Lignier Morey-St. Denis Premier Cru 1999 and Domaine Taupenot- Merme Charmes Chambertin Grand Cru 2007. One of the more enjoyable aspects of these get togethers is that it’s a great opportunity to learn from others who have a far better understanding of and experience with wines that you have no history whatsoever with. I now think that I get ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ pinots.

The two wines consumed at the table together were a sort of yin and yang in the way that they contradicted each other.
Unfortunately the Lignier had a whiff of TCA. Putting the nose aside it was still a very tasty drop - it had a dark, foreboding sense of weight and power about it. I’d love to see this wine again in 10 to 15 years or so but I doubt very much that my wallet or my wife will permit me to do that. Big thanks to Dlo for sharing this wine with the group.

The second pinot, the Domaine Taupenot-Merme , was perhaps a tad dilute but it had the hallmarks of a feminine wine. Stawberries, raspberries, rose petals, some lighter cherry notes and vanilla on the nose. I don’t think this wine will significantly improve – it’s definitely not a long termer but it would be really interesting to see how it evolves over the next 3 to 4 years.

The nightcap consisted of Calvados Domfrontais, a sort of brandy if you will. It tasted a bit like whiskey but with no peat and no smoke to contend with – a touch cleaner than the Scottish stuff. Nice but not good if you’re working the next day…

I seem to recall someone mentioning Pistachio at the Torrens shops as a possibility for the venue of the next get together. However I don’t seem to remember if anyone reached agreement on a theme (although it may have been reached  ). Perhaps we need to sort that out before we decide where we’re going next?

Looking forward to doing it all again next month. Malliemcg perhaps we’ll see you at the next one?

Cheers
Matt